Commissioning device

Claim 1

A commissioning device comprising: a conveying means; a plurality of shift-out magazines disposed along said conveying means and arranged to accommodate items in stacked relationship, said shift-out magazines including insert spaces for introduction of said items in item stacks and shift-out spaces into which said item stacks are transferred from said insert spaces; a shifting device associated with the shift-out spaces of said shift-out magazines and arranged to shift the items accommodated in said shift-out spaces individually from a respective one of the shift-out spaces onto the conveying means; said conveying means arranged to collect collectives of items shifted out of the shift-out magazines according to composition orders of individual commissions and delivering said collectives of items; an item stack throughput storage means provided for each shift-out magazine upstream thereof, an intermittently operated advancing means associated with said item stack throughput storage means and arranged for advancing a row of item stacks present in said item stack throughput storage means in an advance direction by one receiving space each time said advancing means is operated, at least the foremost one of the item stacks present in said item stack throughput storage means being introduced into the insert space of the shift-out magazine associated with said item stack throughput storage means by said advancing means, said insert spaces being arranged beside said shift-out spaces in said shift-out magazines with one passageway each provided between said insert spaces and said shift-out spaces for successive movement of the item stacks through said passageway in a transverse direction perpendicular to said advance direction from an insert space into the respective shift-out space, a transverse slide provided in said insert space and having an automatic drive for shifting the item stacks in said transverse direction, a supply sensor being provided in each shift-out space to trigger a transverse shifting step of said transverse slide for transferring an item stack from said insert space into the respective shift-out space as soon as the supply of items present in the shift-out space of the respective shift-out magazine has fallen below a certain limit due to successive shifting out of items and room has become available for introduction of a further item stack, an end position switch being provided to trigger the advancing means of the item stack throughput storage means for introduction of at least one item stack into the insert space of the respective shift-out magazine as soon as said transverse slide has reached an end position close to a shift-out space during transfer of item stacks and thus an insert space has been cleared.